Apprehensive that the Opposition's protests might feed into resentment over the lack of government jobs, the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has rolled back a policy on contractual recruitment of government employees. The government moved fast, being already shaky over growing quota demands from different communities, also triggered by their fear of shrinking opportunities. The Shiv Sena (Shinde)-BJP government announced the rollback on contractual appointments on October 20, with Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis pointing fingers at the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, saying the policy was framed by it. He also claimed to have himself raised objections to it, and said that his protests against “inflated” rates awarded to private agencies for contract recruitment had led to these being curtailed to 25%. “Why should we own up to their sin? Why should we own up to their decision and get the flak?” Fadnavis said. The timeline In the first week of September, the Shinde government cleared the empanelment of nine private agencies to provide employees to government, semi-government, urban, local body, corporation bodies, and other government establishments. The government resolution specified 70 posts under the skilled manpower category; 50 posts under the semi-skilled category; and eight posts in the skilled category through contractual recruitment. Following this, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Rohit Pawar, who has been stepping up his involvement in party affairs after Ajit Pawar’s exit, announced a state-wide tour and campaign against the policy, saying contractual recruitments first began in 1998, at the time of the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition. Congress president Nana Patole joined the conversation, accusing the government of promoting privatisation. “Contractual recruitment was a BJP strategy to hand over projects to its own kith and kin. It was in violation of democratic principles. The blatant misuse of power by the BJP amounts to open loot of taxpayers' money," Patole said. At a meeting held in Mumbai last week, Sharad Pawar hit out at the government for including police forces in the ambit of contractual employment. “The police department relates to security and is a sensitive department. Allowing contractual employees in the police department on a temporary basis cannot work,” the NCP supremo said. Fadnavis's claims The Deputy CM has quoted a “timeline of the proposal”, saying that on September 1, 2021, when Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray was in power along with the NCP and Congress, a nod was given to a draft for contract recruitment. Three days later, an online tender was opened, inviting companies, he said, with the last date of submission being January 31, 2022. A technical evaluation of the companies was done on February 23, 2022. Subsequently, on April 8, 2022, Fadnavis said, a commercial tender was opened, and the same month, a meeting was held with private agencies. The Finance Department gave the approval in August that year. Fadnavis also claimed that contract recruitments were first undertaken in Maharashtra during the tenure of Congress CM Sushilkumar Shinde in the early 2000s. Fadnavis, who also holds the Home portfolio, took serious objection to the Opposition’s charge that police recruitments were being done through contractual recruitment, saying that due to severe shortage of police personnel, the state government decided to get 3,000 people from the Maharashtra State Suraksha Mahamandal, a state government-owned body. “During Thackeray’s regime, there was no recruitment in the police force. As a result, there is a shortage of 18,331 police persons. The entire process of shortlisting candidates and training them requires one-and-a-half years. Moreover, there is no facility to impart training to 18,000 people at one time.” Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said the decision to recruit staff on contractual basis was “an appropriate one”. “However, the Opposition tried to spread misunderstanding among the youths that they would lose their job and that they would not get jobs. Because of this, we had to cancel.”
